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"No recession" may prove a lot more important in the 2020 presidential election than "no collusion." So what's next for the Trump economy? It's the biggest economic debate happening right now, especially given the huge potential political implications. Team Trump is optimistic. White House economists predict the 2018 upturn in GDP growth to 3 percent is here to stay thanks in large part to the GOP tax cuts for business investment.
President Trump on Tuesday signed an executive order directing federal agencies to identify the threats posed by potential electromagnetic pulses (EMP), which are believed to be potentially dangerous to critical infrastructure like the electric grid, and find ways to guard against them.
American colleges used to pride themselves on their commitment to free speech and free inquiry. That’s the only way learning takes place, we thought, and you’d have to go back to the Dark Ages to find people who disagreed. Only now the Dark Ages have returned, with college speech codes, barking-mad left-wing student mobs and faculties that refuse to hire open conservatives.
This isn’t about conservative versus liberal, Democrat versus Republican, or left versus right. It’s about intellectual freedom versus social tyranny. When those who wish to see colleges and universities function as the intellectual equivalent of totalitarian police states are finally defeated, we will all have gained a major victory for freedom and individual liberty. Our free speech rights must be protected, so that all views have space in our society where they can be expressed.
For the first time in two years--and for the first time under President Trump--the U.S. is set to have a chief technology officer. On March 21 the president will nominate for the post Michael Kratsios, a former venture capitalist who now serves as deputy CTO, a White House official tells Bloomberg Businessweek. Kratsios is just 32, but he’s exceedingly well-connected, having served as chief of staff at investment management firm Thiel Capital before joining Trump’s transition team in late 2016.
President Trump just signed an Executive Order requiring colleges and universities to uphold free speech or risk losing federal research and education grants. “Universities that want taxpayer dollars should promote free speech, not silence free speech,” President Trump said at the White House on Thursday. “People who are confident in their beliefs should not censor others.”
The American AI Initiative is a welcome step towards boosting U.S. competitiveness in AI, but it does not go far enough. Without more substantial efforts from the Trump administration and Congress, the United States will struggle to compete with other countries that have developed aggressive national AI strategies, and the economy will be worse off for it.
The executive order is the first attempt by the Trump administration to lay out its views about artificial intelligence. It says AI “promises to drive growth” and that the US must “maintain leadership” in the field, and it puts agencies on notice that the White House expects them to pay attention to the subject. It also encourages the availability of big data sets that could be used to train AI. systems.
The “American AI Initiative” comes at a time when the US is competing fiercely with China and other countries to better develop AI technology -- which has wide-reaching applications, from the military to the health sector. The Chinese government released its own sweeping AI plan nearly two years ago and has committed tens of billions of dollars in spending toward developing it. The US, so far, has put out some research reports on the state of AI but has lacked any federal-level national policy agenda.
The chief executives of Apple Inc., Lockheed Martin Corp. and Walmart Inc., are among 25 prominent Americans who will shape Trump administration efforts to develop job training programs to meet the changing demands of U.S. employers. The creation of the American Workforce Policy Advisory Board, announced by Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and President Donald Trump’s daughter and adviser Ivanka Trump on Wednesday, will work with the National Council for the American Worker established last July by an executive order.